What Is Under Lake Vostok?

[Windsor]

To those who may not be aware, Lake Vostok is a subglacial fresh water lake buried under kilometres of ice, but let the following details describe it,

The Discovery of Subglacial Lake Vostok
In the 1960s, Russian scientists hypothesized water beneath the ice sheet based on results from seismic soundings. In the 1970s, a joint US-UK-Denmark airborne radar mapping project discovered areas with flat reflections from the bottom of the ice sheet suggesting water beneath the ice. The full size of Lake Vostok was first revealed in 1996 by the flat ice sheet surface mapped from the European ERS-1 satellite.

Microbial Life in Ice
Bacteria found in refrozen lake water at the bottom of the Vostok ice core could be part of an indigenous ecosystem below that's been living in the cold, dark waters for millions of years. Lake Vostok has been isolated from open exchange with the atmosphere for several million years. No one knows how any organism, cut off from air, sunlight or any apparent source of life-sustaining energy, could survive in its frigid waters or under such crushing pressure of more than 360 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level.

Subglacial Lake Vostok is the closest terrestrial analogue to Europa, the ice covered Jovian moon, and to a Neoproterozoic snowball Earth. The 4-kilometer-thick ice sheet goes afloat as it crosses the lake, just as ice sheets become floating ice shelves at the grounding line. The subglacial environment represents one of the most oligotrophic environments on Earth, an environment with low nutrient levels and low standing stocks of viable organisms. If life thrives in these environments it may have to depend on alternative energy sources and survival strategies. A flash animation illustrates the basal freezing process and the flow of the ice sheet over the lake.

 

[Windsor]

Scientists close to entering Vostok, Antarctica’s biggest subglacial lake!

By Marc Kaufman,
Published: February 1

<article>After drilling for two decades through more than two miles of antarctic ice, Russian scientists are on the verge of entering a vast, dark lake that hasn’t been touched by light for more than 20 million years.

Scientists are enormously excited about what life-forms might be found there but are equally worried about contaminating the lake with drilling fluids and bacteria, and the potentially explosive “de-gassing” of a body of water that has especially high concentrations of oxygen and nitrogen.

To prevent a sudden release of gas, the Russian team will not push the drill far into the lake but just deep enough for a limited amount of water — or the slushy ice on the lake’s surface — to flow up the borehole, where it will then freeze.Reaching Lake Vostok would represent the first direct contact with what scientists now know is a web of more than 200 subglacial lakes in Antarctica — some of which existed when the continent was connected to Australia and was much warmer. They stay liquid because of heat from the core of the planet.

<article> “This is a huge moment for science and exploration, breaking through to this enormous lake that we didn’t even know existed until the 1990s,” said John Priscu, a researcher at Montana State University who has long been involved in antarctic research, including a study of Vostok ice cores.
“If it goes well, a breakthrough opens up a whole new chapter in our understanding of our planet and possibly moons in our solar system and planets far beyond,” he said. “If it doesn’t go well, it casts a pall over the whole effort to explore this wet underside of Antarctica.”

Priscu said Russian scientists on the scene e-mailed him last week to say they had stopped drilling about 40 feet from the expected waterline to measure the pressure levels deep below. Priscu said he expected that they were also sending down a special “hot water” drill to make the final push, but a message from the Russian team Monday reported “no news.”

If the Russians break through as planned within the next week, it will cap more than 50 years of research in what are considered the harshest conditions in the world — where the surface temperatures drop to 100 degrees below zero. That extreme cold is likely to return within a few weeks, at the end of the antarctic summer, putting pressure on the Russians to make the final push or pull out until the next antarctic drilling season, starting in December.

The extreme cold, which limited drilling time, contributed to the long duration of the project. The Russian team also ran into delays caused by financial strains and by efforts to address international worries about their drilling operation. Valery Lukin, who is leading the effort for the Russians, is on the ice. Last year, he told Reuters that their work is “like exploring an alien planet where no one has been before. We don’t know what we’ll find.”

The ‘crown jewel’
American and English teams are planning drilling campaigns next year into much smaller antarctic lakes as scientists work to understand the dynamics of the continent, which holds more than 70 percent of the world’s fresh water. But Vostok — where the former Soviet Union began work after the United States settled in at the South Pole more than 50 years ago — is now acknowledged to be the “crown jewel” of Antarctica from a scientific perspective.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio.../27/gIQAbGX0fQ_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop
</article> </article>

 

[Froggy]

Its amazing to know all these "new frontiers" still exists today. Of course with more and more teechnological advancements very soon humans are going to exploit it. I wonder what the people here think, should we or shouldn't we touch them. For me I am in for exploring it with limitations of course not to spoil it.

 

[Windsor]

Its amazing to know all these "new frontiers" still exists today. Of course with more and more teechnological advancements very soon humans are going to exploit it. I wonder what the people here think, should we or shouldn't we touch them. For me I am in for exploring it with limitations of course not to spoil it.

This is truly a new and one of the last frontier for scientists with possible unknown dangers. What challenges and new discoveries awaits us? Can it possibly caused untold disasters by opening what could be pandora's box. In 2 weeks the world might know all this.

 

[KNNBCCB]

[video=youtube;ouZkkIsLiNg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouZkkIsLiNg[/video]

 

[vamjok]

if life can be really found there, it means a lot of moons even within our solar system has high probability of containing simple lifeforms.

 

[zhihau]

To those who may not be aware, Lake Vostok is a subglacial fresh water lake buried under kilometres of ice

bro,

think they just did it :p:p:p

source:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/the...russian-lake-vostok-120206.html#mkcpgn=fbsci1

 

[Froggy]

Thank you Zhihua. The link has a very helpful picture illustrating the whats inside.

 

[zhihau]

picture illustrating the whats inside.

a pleasure to share

 

[groober2011]

[video=youtube_share;nPjyHUipBGM]http://youtu.be/nPjyHUipBGM[/video]